128. CERCIDIUM TORREYANUM GREEN-BARKED ACACIA. 25 



USES. Little use is made of this wood, though its properties would 

 suggest its appropriateness for use in turnery, etc. The heauty of the 

 tree too should give it greater popularity than it now has for ornamental 

 purposes. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES are not claimed of this species. 



ORDER LEGUMINOSJE : PULSE FAMILY. 



Leaves alternate, usually compound, entire and furnished with stipules. Flowers 

 with 5 sepals more or less united at the base ; petals 5, papilionaceous or regular ; 

 stamens diadelphous, monodelphous or distinct and with versatile anthers ; pistils 

 single, simple and free. Fruit a legume (pod) with mostly albumenless seeds. 



GENUS CERCIDIUM, TULASNE. 



Leaves alternate, abruptly bipinnate, with one or two pairs of 4-8-foliate pinnae, 

 and common petiole short ; very early deciduous, stipules minute or wanting, leaflets 

 ovate to obovate without stipels. Flowers perfect, yellowish or whitish, on slender 

 pedicels, in short, loose few-flowered axillary racemes ; calyx 5-parted, produced at 

 base and jointed upon the pedicel, membranous, persistent, with acute deciduous 

 lobes, valvate in aestivation ; petals 5, orbicular or oblong, clawed, yellow, imbricated 

 in aesti% r atiou, the upper one broader, longer-clawed and within the others, some- 

 what cordate, pubescent and glandular at base ; stamems 10, free, with filaments 

 hairy at base, inserted with the petals on the margin of the disk, exserted, the upper 

 one gibbous on the upper side ; anthers versatile, 2-cetled and longitudinally dehis- 

 cent ; pistil with filiform style turned inward in the bud, minute stigma ; ovary 

 short-stipetate and containing several anatropous suspended ovules. Fruit a linear- 

 oblong legume, compressed, with thick margins, more or less contracted between 

 the seeds or sometimes not, obliquely veined, tardily dehiscent by two valves ; seeds 

 ovate-oblong with long slender funicluli and thin crustaceous testa ; embryo com- 

 pressed and with thin hard albumen. 



A genus of few species of the warmer parts of the New World and name taken 

 from the Greek KEpniftiov, an instrument used in weaving and applied on account 

 of a fancied resemblance in the pods. 



128. CERCIDIUM TORREYANUM, SARG.* 



GREEN-BARKED ACACIA, PALO VERDE. 

 Ger., Grunrinde Acacie ; Fr., Acacia a ecorce vert; Sp., Palo Verde. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. Leaves few and scattered, about 1 in. in length, sparingly 

 pubescent, with slender petioles and 2 pinnae, each with 2-3 pairs of oblong, obtuse, 

 somewhat oblique, glaucous leaflets in. or less in length. The leaves fall very 

 early, soon after expanding ; branchlets sparingly pubescent when young but quite 

 glabrous later, glaucous, furnished with stout prickles about in. in length. 

 Flowers begin to appear in April with the leaves, and continue for three or four 

 months so that flowers and pods in various stages of development are found on the 

 tree at the same time, about f in. across when expanded, with long pedicels in 4-5- 

 flowered racemes, with small acute caducous bracts ; gland on the upper petal very 

 prominent ; ovary glabrous. Fruit ripe in July, legumes 3-4 in. long, slightly tur- 

 gid, with 2-8 seeds and often contracted between the seeds ; nerve of ventral suture 

 grooved . 



(The specific name, Torreyanum, is given in compliment to Dr. John Torrey, the 

 botanist.) 



* Parkinsonia Torreyana. Watson in Botany of California, etc. 



4 



